Will Fani Willis Flame Out?

The two best-informed reporters on the Georgia case explain what’s happening and why.

Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman are my good friends and former colleagues at Newsweek, where we worked together for many years. Now they’ve written a terrific new book, Find Me the Votes, about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her prosecution of Donald Trump and the conspirators who helped him try to steal the 2020 election. Willis made the mistake of getting romantically involved with one of her prosecutors, Nathan Wade, and last week, she dramatically took the stand to testify in a civil proceeding before Judge Scott McAfee over a defense motion that she should be disqualified as the prosecutor and the entire case immediately thrown out. Her fate — and that of the defendants in this historic case — rests on whether the judge believes Willis is telling the truth when she says she and Wade didn’t begin their affair (now over) until after he was hired. Mike and Danny know more about the Georgia case than anyone, and their book was admitted into evidence, as they explain below.

Michael Isikoff (L) and Daniel Klaidman(R)

JONATHAN ALTER:

Hi, guys. What’s going on in this civil proceeding re Fani Willis?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

All the evidence is in, with the exception of the possibility that the judge reopens it to allow testimony from Terence Bradley [Nathan Wade’s former lawyer]. There will be a closed in-camera hearing about whether what Bradley knows is protected by attorney-client privilege. And then one of the Trump lawyers also has some cell phone records that he wants to try to get in, but they are unlikely to be very relevant. There will probably be arguments on [Bradley’s role] the week of February 26. Then the judge will take it under advisement and decide fairly quickly.

My guess is it'll take about a week after that for him to decide whether the motion succeeds or fails. If the motion fails, it's over, and Fani Willis and her team stay on the case and move forward with the prosecution based on whatever timeline the judge sets. And if it succeeds, then she's disqualified, the whole team is disqualified, and the DA’s office is disqualified. And then the conspiracy case [against Trump and other defendants] may never actually go forward.

JON:

Isn't there a third option— that the judge disqualifies Fani Willis but lets other people in her office bring the case?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

That’s not an option because she's the district attorney, and everyone reports to her, and you can't just wall her off. That's the law in Georgia.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

It's not anything that is a slam dunk. You have the sworn testimony of Wade and Willis about when they began the affair. You've got one witness [Robin Bryan-Yeartie], a former employee of the Fulton County DA’s office who was fired, who said she saw them hugging and kissing and that they were having an affair before November of 2021 when [Wade] was hired. But she really had nothing specific. She couldn't say when, where, or what Willis had said. Who else was there [for the hugging and kissing]? It was all kind of vague. So you have one witness contradicting what [Willis and Wade] testified to. And then you have this wildcard witness, Terrence Bradley, who was Wade’s lawyer, and the most incriminating thing he said on the witness stand is that the lawyer for [Michael] Roman [the defendant in the Trump conspiracy case who exposed the story] texted him or emailed him the draft of the motion, and he wrote back, “Looks good.” But what does that mean? Did Bradley read every paragraph and sign off on it?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

It's interesting to note that the judge in this case, Scott McAfee, worked for Fani Willis in the DA’s office. [Before she was elected DA]. She was his boss. I was just talking to someone who worked with all of them, and he said they weren't super close, but there was a lot of mutual respect. She considered him one of the best in the office and always very well-prepared. And I asked whether there had been any tension or any falling out between them, and this person said, “No.”

JON:

So what do you guys think is gonna happen?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

I don't know. I was a little surprised that McAfee opened the door for an evidentiary hearing in the first place. He's been pretty poker-faced and has brushed back both sides. There's some who believe the fix is in—that [Governor Brian] Kemp wants the case to go away and that McAfee was appointed by Kemp, and he's going to disqualify her. The other school of thought is that the judge feels he has to give the defense every opportunity to make their case, so he let this [hearing] happen.

But if you take a step back, just a couple of general points about the whole thing. Obviously, it was stupid of her to have this relationship because it gave ammunition to the defense. But the motion itself is so cockamamie. [The defense] basically argues that there was a corrupt bargain between Willis and Wade: She agrees she'll hire him and pay him a lot of money so he could take her on lavish vacations to the Caribbean, and therefore, they had a vested interest in keeping the case going.

But if you think about it, it makes absolutely no sense. There's no evidence that they kept the case going so he could make more money to take her on vacation. I mean, you can make the same argument against Jack Smith: He brought the documents case and the election interference case so he could make more money. Really?

{The defense argument] is that the motive here in bringing the [conspiracy] case was prejudice against Michael Roman and the other defendants as a result of the relationship between Willis and Wade. But were their constitutional rights violated? Was there prejudice shown in the introduction of evidence or prosecutorial misconduct? None. So what the fuck are we talking about here? Yes, it's unseemly and politically bad for her to have gotten into this relationship, but as an evidentiary matter for the case, I'm completely stumped as to what we're doing here.

JON:

You write in your book that you talked to her six times. She said on the stand that she remembered only two or three interviews. That wasn’t true.

DAN KLAIDMAN:

Jon, I have covered hundreds of trials. I was the court reporter covering the DC Superior Court for years. People make mistakes. It's not a material fact. She has literally 30 meetings a day and can’t be expected to remember the exact number of meetings with us.

JON:

How about her friend Robin Yeartie? She knew what was going on in Willis’ life and says the affair began in 2019.

DAN KLAIDMAN:

Actually, if you listen to her testimony, they weren't that good friends. They were friends in college —though she didn't go to Howard [Willis’ alma mater] — but then didn’t talk for 10 or 15 years. And then she gets a job in the DA's office and Fani sees her but finally fired her for misconduct.

[Wade and Willis] were being very private about their relationship. And the idea that they would have been hugging and kissing in her presence when nobody else on the prosecution team had any idea that they had this relationship — I'm skeptical.

JON:

Do you believe Willis that the relationship didn't start until after Wade joined the office?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

Would I be shocked if it began in some form before November 2021? Probably not. Is there evidence to prove it and therefore disqualify and conclude the DA is a liar? Not so far. They didn't produce anything that meets any evidentiary standard — certainly not a preponderance of the evidence that Wade and Willis are lying. You need something stronger than what they've been able to produce.

DAN KLAIDMAN:

First of all, you would think there would be more witnesses to this and more credible witnesses. And second, after he's hired and in the period where they have acknowledged a relationship, there is documentary evidence that they were going on trips, credit card receipts, and [testimony of] money changing hands.  But before he's hired, when, according to Mike Roman, they have this full-blown relationship, there is no documentary evidence. There are no credit card receipts and no evidence that they went on any trips together. So I have to wonder why that is. And maybe it's because the relationship didn't really begin until after he was hired.

JON:

I hadn't really thought of that. The other thing that I found convincing was her father's testimony when he said of keeping cash, "It's a black thing.” Did you think that landed?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

Well, certainly. It backed up what Willis had said. And the way he presented it and described it didn't feel like he was just coming up with a story. It was Nathan Wade who first testified that all of the reimbursements were cash. And the lawyers for the defense were kind of honing in on that, asking, Where did she get this cash? And it seemed kind of sketchy.

But then, when [Willis’ father] testified, it was very effective. He [Willis’ father] told the story of when he was at Harvard on some fellowship, and he was going to a restaurant in Cambridge, and they wouldn't take his American Express card, his Visa card, or his traveler's checks. All that they'll take from this Black man is cash. That obviously left a powerful impression on him and made him think it was important for Black people to have a lot of cash. He also talks about giving Fani her first Cashbox when she was [young]. He was very specific and very compelling. The defense lawyers didn't even want to really cross-examine him on that point.

JON:

Willis said in her testimony that you want to carry cash when you travel abroad because you can get a driver for half as much if you have cash than with a credit card. That is often true.

So what is the judge going to do?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

I don't know what's going to happen, but it strikes me that the judge could find a way to split the baby. He doesn't grant the motion but kind of says, “Tsk, tsk” to Fani Willis for having had this relationship. I was talking to a lawyer who knows all of the players and knows the judge, and he says he wouldn't be surprised if he admonishes her for a significant lapse of judgment without disqualifying her and certainly without dismissing the charges [against Trump and the other defendants].

Going back to the overall theory of the corrupt bargain, as we reported in the book and as came out on the witness stand, Wade wasn't her first choice for the job.

JON:

Yeah, she wanted former governor Roy Barnes, who testified that he declined the job.

DAN KLAIDMAN:

If the whole premise here is she was looking for a way to enrich herself by hiring her boyfriend, it’s undercut by the fact that he wasn't her first choice. He wasn't her second choice. He may not even have been her third choice. She was scrambling to find somebody to do the case, and she finally turned to him.

JON:

Am I right that there is almost zero chance this trial will occur before the election?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

I wouldn't say zero, but it's pretty low because nobody can figure out what the trial schedule is going to be. We don't know what the Supreme Court is going to do [in any of these cases].

JON:

You interviewed [Georgia Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger a few times. I talked to him for quite a while at a conference in Houston last year, and he's very anti-Trump. But do you think he's anti-Trump enough to be against him in the fall, or will he duck like so many other Republicans?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

I don't think he's gonna endorse Trump, but he’s got to survive in Georgia politically. So, whatever he does will probably be muted. By the way, it was Nathan Wade who asked him in his deposition if he took [the famous “Find me the votes!”] audio as a threat, and he said, “Yes.” So, kudos to Wade for nailing Raffensperger down on this.

JON:

Do you think Raffensperger will be a big witness in Jack Smith's case?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

The most compelling evidence of all [against Trump] is the phone call, right?  And we only have it — and Jack Smith only has it — because of Jordan Fuchs, the chief of staff to Raffensperger, who does the gutsy thing and actually tapes the phone call. It's an incredible story [in the book]. We've all talked about Cassidy Hutchinson and all these young women who stood up to Trump after the fact. Jordan Fuchs did it in real-time, and she totally changed the ballgame by doing so.

JON:

Chris Christie says that Mark Meadows is going to be the heart of the Trump Coup case. Do you think Meadows flipped?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF:

Read our epilogue where he gives the game away, walks away from his own book, and says, “I was only trying to land the plane to have a peaceful transition for President-Elect Biden. I was dealing with this volatile boss and trying to land the plane.” Those were his words.

JON:

Why was your book entered into evidence in this proceeding? I thought this is really cool for you. But it was interesting watching Fani Willis kind of minimize your book.

DAN KLAIDMAN:

Actually, she basically repeated exactly what we reported. The defense was trying to make it sound like she was destitute before she ran for DA, and that's why she had to enter into this corrupt bargain with Nathan Wade to make money. The reality was that it was in 2018 after she'd lost a race for a judgeship that cost her $50,000 of her own money that she was broke. But then she started making real money, so when she ran for DA, she was doing better than she had ever done in her whole career. The defense totally distorted what we wrote.

JON:

Is there something else from your book that everybody should know?

DAN KLAIDMAN:

We tell her [back-story] and the story of this as a conspiracy case. In the Jack Smith case, Trump is the sole defendant. But Trump didn't do what he did on his own. He had an army of confederates who helped him and amplified what he was doing at every stage — from Giuliani to Eastland to Meadows to Chesebro. So, if you want to hold the conspirators accountable, Georgia is the only case that does that.

“He [Trump] had an army of confederates who helped him and amplified what he was doing at every stage — from Giuliani to Eastland to Meadows to Chesebro. So, if you want to hold the conspirators accountable, Georgia is the only case that does that.”

It’s important to focus on these horrific threats to election workers. They repeated them over and over again, Trump in his phone call to Raffensperger mentions Ruby Freeman 18 times and it was all bullshit. It had been debunked within a day or two by the GBI [Georgia Bureau of Investigation], the FBI, and the US Attorney. [Attorney General William] Barr called up B.J. Pak, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, the second Rudy Giuliani made those claims, and Pak reported back to him that there was nothing. They interviewed everybody and looked at all the State Farm [vote counting center] videos — there was nothing. This was really egregious conduct all across the board.

Take a look at  David French's piece in The Times about all the threats. He mentioned our book and an interview that we did with NPR. The point is that we are living in this climate of fear and horrible political threats and actual violence. And this is a big part of the reason that red-state politicians are not standing up to the MAGA movement. It's kind of the meta point of our book. The threats are a really big deal.

JON:

They are, indeed. Thanks, guys.